lazy sunday, and saturday

We had a very lazy weekend, which was awesome. I love sitting on my ass for days on end. I left the house twice: once to go grocery shopping, and once to water my azaleas. Both times were on Sunday, I didn't venture outside once on Saturday. Again, awesome. Alfred did some chores around the house but was nice enough to let me be lazy. I was kind of cranky/not feeling great too, so I guess it probably worked in his favor anyway. In honor of my laziness, I am posting 2 pictures of nature-type things. This spider lived on our front porch for a long time. He's gone now. Oh, and I saw a big green snake in our yard yesterday. Scared the crap out of me, I had just put the hose back and was going into the house and there he was, stretched out right across where I was about to walk. I scared him too, he slithered under the house. I wonder if he's friends with Our Friend, the Black Snake. He probably is. They have us in common, at least.

Our crockpot has been getting a good workout the past couple of days. We made split pea soup in it today, which was pretty delicious, and tomorrow we're going to make a lamb stew. It's so nice to come home and have dinner all ready to go. It's especially nice to get all the prep work done ahead of time when Alfred's here to help. I've been getting home before him and making dinner myself a lot lately, so it's been fun to cook together again. We played Iron Chef on Saturday night, I made ham rolls and he made ham cakes (like crab cakes, but with ham). Guess what the secret ingredient was. We had to squeeze in lots of domesticity, because we're house sitting for a week and a half starting this weekend. I'll probably be coming home most weeknights, but I don't exactly cook much for myself when I'm eating dinner alone. And Mike is planning on visiting again this weekend. Unfortunately I have to work Saturday and possibly Sunday, although I'm doing my best to get out of it on Sunday. I'm making the new girl work both days, so maybe I'll just be really mean and make her work by herself on Sunday. We'll see, I guess.

critters and stuff

Last night we had quite the little menagerie in the house. Ok, that's a little dramatic, but we did have a roach and a gecko. Alfred saw the gecko in the office and said we should leave him inside to eat the bugs. He (the gecko, not Alfred) was running all over the walls and ceilings. He was a twitchy little thing. And kind of big.

I guess he's still in here now, but I haven't seen him today. He obviously was not doing his job with the bugs though, because there was a smallish roach in the hallway last night. He was half dead already, and Alfred beat him into the carpet to finish him off. I had to pick little roach bits out of the carpet, it was really gross. But it's dead!

So Alfred's not home tonight, he's staying at his parents' house to help them out. Robyn had surgery on her eyelids this morning to help with her peripheral vision. He said she's in a lot of pain, which is understandable, considering they lasered her eyelids all to pieces. She can't go up stairs for 2 or 3 days, so she's camped out in the dining room now. That must make it so much worse, not being able to be in your own bed. She can't read, watch tv, or use a computer for I think 10 days, then can't drive for like 6 or 8 weeks. I can't even imagine. That's why we celebrated his birthday last weekend - it's not until this Saturday, so Katherine, you're not late!

One last thing I just remembered, totally random but here goes. I heard on NPR last week that the FL supreme court ruled that a law banning gay couples from adopting kids was unconstitutional. So, good job FL, way to not be the most ass-backward state in at least one way!

baby/book club, and When Roaches Attack

Last night was my book club. Those of us without kids are pretty outnumbered by this point, although only 2 babies were along for the evening. Plus one fetus. One of the babies was the one who was born the day after last month's book club. He was so tiny, so cute. Dang, I want a damn kid.

So I was apparently a roach magnet today. I killed a total of 4 roaches throughout the day. #1 was in the house this morning, I just squashed it and then flushed it. Pretty straight forward. #2 was in my office, on the windowsill. I smashed it and then tried to feed it to Marc Anthony. He wasn't interested. I guess he likes to kill them himself. #3 was in the store. It was freaking huge. I mean, gigantic. Like 3 or 4 inches long. I couldn't step on it, it would have been like stepping on a small child. So I sprayed him with some bleach, waited for a few minutes, then scooped him up (still alive) and dumped him in the toilet. He drowned. #4 was interesting. I was plunging one of the toilets outside and thought I saw a roach swimming around in the bowl. I thought I was imagining it, until I lifted the plunger and the damn thing was trying to crawl out to save its own life. Obviously I dunked him back in and flushed. Luckily the toilet didn't overflow (plumbing is one of those neat things I get to add to my resume thanks to the museum) and the roach joined his buddies in the sewer. I guess he was hanging out in the plunger and I just killed him coincidentally. He deserved it.

on the wagon

So I write the checks for work every week. I noticed a couple of months ago that whenever I wrote a check to Alfred for reimbursement, I made them out to "Alfred," his middle name, instead of "Max," his legal first name, and the name that is on our account. You'd think I'd know how to write a check to my own husband, but apparently not. Luckily our bank takes it anyway, so I always just write them to Alfred so they don't get mixed up and go to his dad somehow.

I had dinner last night with some girls from my book club. One of the girls brought her 6 month old son, who was so cute - he was smiling at everyone, and kept staring and smiling at the girl next to him and trying to hold her hand. I had a giant, delicious burger with bleu cheese, and loved every bite. However, I am currently back on the wagon (the eating healthy and exercising wagon - I fell off for a week or so, skipping workouts, eating lots of delicious bad things like cheesecake, cookies, m&ms, ice cream) which is a good thing, because it meant I was able to resist a) the chips with bleu cheese b) the fries (got fruit instead), c) the Oreo milkshake, and d) the bakery a few doors away that a couple of girls went to after dinner, which features giant Oreo cupcakes, for one thing. Mmm, oreo based desserts. I felt very virtuous. Dang, I've been looking for food pictures for like 10 minutes and now I'm hungry. I want a cupcake. Good thing I'm back on the wagon.

I had left the office at about 5:30 for my dinner, Alfred was planning on going to his parents' house for dinner. When I called him at 7:40 as I was leaving the restaurant, they were still at the damn office! Crazy people! So I got to sit and watch TV while he ate with his family.

Also: rich people have roaches, too. There was one in the kitchen last night. I poisoned it with some Clorox cleaning spray, and Alfred squashed it. Little bastard.

roaches and teaching and house sitting, oh my!

First off, I would like to thank Katie for her oh so traumatic contribution to roach stories (she left a comment after my last post, if you're interested.) I didn't say that was my worst roach story, he was just a rather scholarly roach. If you want to hear a bad roach story... a couple of years ago I was getting ready for work one morning and went to put my boot on. A roach came running out of my boot and skittered across my arm. That's right, it ran on me. Out of my shoe. Which was in my closet. ONTO ME. I was afraid to put on shoes for weeks. Beat that. :)

I just got back from lunch, I met a girl from my book club. (I posted this picture because a) certain people get upset if there's no picture in a post, and b) I passed the restaurant this picture was taken at on my way to lunch. Well, and c) it's funny.) She's a teacher and has worked in a couple of counties around here, so she gave me a bunch of advice about interviewing and what key words to say, and some tips about job searching. It was very helpful to hear from someone who knows what she's talking about and has so much experience. She had emailed a principal who was hiring a kindergarten teacher about me, but unfortunately she already filled the position with another teacher at the school. But, she did say that some other positions would probably open up in 1st and 2nd grade, so that could be good. I'm really kind of starting to freak out about finding a job. There are budget cuts this year, so a lot of districts are increasing class sizes and not hiring as many teachers. Plus, I have no real classroom experience, and only have a temporary teaching certificate. I'm really hoping I get something at the recruitment fair I'm going to next week, but honestly, I'm not feeling too hopeful.

If teaching doesn't work out though, maybe I can start a house sitting service. We're double booked this weekend, with Ilya and Mercedes' house and the big house we were at last weekend. So we're sleeping at one house and going to check on the cats at the other. The only bad thing is we can't go home until Sunday. When will I bake??

Alfred to the rescue

We had an invader in the house this morning. I got up at 6, went into the bathroom, and there's a giant freaking COCKROACH on the back of the toilet! That woke me up pretty damn quick, let me tell you. Now, I don't want to overstate this or anything, but I hate roaches with a passion like the fiery pits of hell. They just freak me out, they're so hard to kill and are so damn fast and dirty. I hate going anywhere near them. I even hate killing them because I have to go close to them, and half the time when you go to kill them they run like hell and you miss and then you have to jump around and shriek like a little girl because it moved. I hate roaches almost as much as I hated the centipedes I used to have to kill in the basement of my parents' house. Ugh. Those little fuckers are just nasty, nothing should have that many legs. They'd just be chillin' on the wall when I walked by, then try to bolt before I smeared them across the wall with a shoe. Then I'd have to leave the smear there, cause the wall was too hard to clean because of the texture. But I digress.

So I go into the bathroom and the roach is on the back of the toilet. I go grab a flip flop and get ready for action, but the little bastard is too smart. There's a library book on the back of the toilet, and of course he crawls up on top of that so I can't kill him. He just strolls back and forth, checking everything out, crawls down the side of the book, investigates the binding. Usually roaches are either standing still or running like mad, but not him. Just walking around, taking his time, as casual as can be. Meanwhile I'm standing there in my pjs with a flip flop raised for attack, waiting for him to get off the damn book so I can smash him, and giving a running commentary for Alfred, who's in bed trying to go back to sleep. Nope, no sleep when there's evil afoot. He tells me to ignore it and just use the bathroom and he'll kill it when he gets up. Clearly, there's no way on God's green earth I'm using a toilet with a roach on it. So finally I give up and go downstairs. Five minutes later, after dismantling half the toilet in his quest, Alfred and the Toilet Paper of Death have splattered the roach across the bathroom. He then threw it in the toilet and peed on it. My hero. (You're supposed to flush them because if it's a female and has eggs, they can still hatch after she's dead. Freaking disgusting creatures.) It smelled like dead roach for awhile afterwards, but it's better than a live roach lurking in our house.